Home Again. 06-16-12

I don't know if it is Blogger or if it is a tired Del, but this is the third time I have typed in the text for this blog post!  I can never remember what I wrote previously, but it always seems like it was better!

I have pushed too hard the last few days - 481 miles Friday and 428 miles today - overstepping the boundary I set before I left on this trip, which was no more than 400 miles a day.  I had a nap after my arrival home a little before 4pm, but then was up to unload the car (not finished), do some laundry, and do e-mail catch up.  I need to go back to bed soon. 

I have saved some rejects from my point and shoot photos taken whilst driving.  Just to show how bad it can get when one doesn't look at the screen or through the view finder.  No touch up on these - just resized. 

 
The unfortunate white streak was on the windshield, not the mountain.

 
Too much reflection, not enough landscape.

On any road trip there are a few vehicle interior shots. 

And always some guard rails slipping quickly past. 

 
This looks like a double exposure, not possible with digital.  The red/yellow stripe is a reflection of my fabric camera cover, the right side of the photo is a rocky road cut.  I haven't a clue what anything else might be.

 
A blurred road cut...

 
And one that isn't blurry, but missing the top part.  Along with a blurry median barrier.

 
Another view of an absolutely filthy vehicle interior.  The outside is worse.

 
A composite shot of blurred landscape, guard rail, interior and the guy on my tail.

 
?????

Your guess is as good as mine!

I have quite a few pictures to post, especially those of the Ruth McDowell students work.  I'll get to them soon.  Right now - to bed.  My very own bed!

Friday Feet - Subway 06-15-12

Tonight I am at HIE in Cedar City, Utah, and Friday Feet is all I can manage!  I drove 481 miles today - 81 miles over my self declared limit!  But I also had lunch in Orem, UT, with Beverly Hart, an online friend - great to meet in person, at last.  More on that later.   I had called ahead for a room and when I arrived at the motel about 7pm I found a girl's soccer team sprawled in the hall and a group of younger boys occupying the breakfast room; according to the desk clerk there are several more youth sports teams staying tonight.  As always, I have my earplugs, so I quickly moved my stuff into my room and applied the earplugs for a two hour nap.  I didn't hear a thing until I took them out and found the party in the hall was still going strong.  Ahhhh, the stamina of youth!  They all went to bed around 11pm.  I spent a half hour trying to get online, even going to the front desk for help... or, should I say, no help..  before pulling out my sky card and hooking up immediately.  Although I pay for it every month, I rarely use it and forget that it is an option.  And now to bed again and, hopefully, on the road in the morning with enough time to make it all the way home.  I need to spend a day recuperating, it has been a physically difficult trip.  But, as my pictures show, a memorable one.  I will post more pictures of the landscape and of the projects in Ruth McDowell's class. 

 
I don't remember in what city this Subway is located.  I just thought the legs and shoes were interesting along with the giant veggies on the tile counter front. 

Last day at Glacier - heading home 06-14-12

I am a day behind on posting - sorry!  I am in Idaho Falls, Idaho, tonight after a 368 mile day, which seems paltry after my years of much longer days when on a Road Trip.  I just get too tired to keep driving - it isn't safe.  The photos below were taken (mostly) yesterday when I left Kalispell and retraced the route Joan Hodgeboom drove on our Glacier tour on Monday.  Instead of turning north up the east side of Glacier I continued east until I came to I-15 and turned south for home. 

 
The only Starbuck's in Kalispell is on the north end of town where all the new stores and shopping malls are located.  This is the first time I have seen a fireplace in a Starbuck's and it is an indoor/outdoor one at that!  Classy.  I started my trip with a Grande Latte.  But no snacks.

 
Instead I drove to West Glacier and stopped at Glacier Highland Restaurant where they serve those fabulous pancakes - and I ate the pancakes again.  Fabulous might not be a strong enough word.

 

The carved bear with the eye patch isn't the only bear around.  Here on the porch is one climbing a pole.

 

And there is a bench being held up by a bear with a cub at the near end.  They are quite charming and I wish I could take one home, but it wouldn't be as charming in Placentia!

 
It was almost constant rain while I was inside the park at West Glacier, not many tourists out.

 
Lake McDonald was very misty, the far snow-covered mountain is barely visible and the boats were just gently bumping their moorings in the mist.  Not too cold though  - about 52.

I stopped at Goat Lick to see if there were any licking goats - no luck.  But across the road and high on the hillside there were these four light spots.  

 
Hardly more recognizable when I enlarge the image - my camera is just not powerful enough.

 
Here is a picture that Loretta Armstrong took two years ago when she took Ruth McDowell's class and did a tour of the park.  She says this mother and baby were quite close to the road.  Mountain goats have long white coats and sharp, black horns.  Mountain sheep have beige coats and large curly horns.

 
Continuing across Hwy 2 along the bottom of the park I noticed that the snow markers were getting taller.  These posts with the white rectangles are placed to show the snowplows where the edge of the road is.  In some places they are only a few feet tall and others they can be eight or nine feet or more - an indication of the depths of snow reached at different spots.

 
Out on the high rolling plains east of the park there are many snow fences, made of metal and placed to divert the snow drifts off the roads.

 
After I turned south on I-15 I had a terrific tail wind that really pushed the car along.  This was the highest gas mileage I have ever had, but the wind died down and my mileage went back to the mid 20s!

 
This shot was in the same area as the Wordless Wednesday I posted yesterday.  Rain is falling over on the top of the hills, but I didn't have any on the highway.

 
With that kind of wind there are, of course, wind turbines.  This was quite a large wind farm and all of them were generating electricity yesterday.

 
This is out of order - somehow I missed posting it on Monday.  But the sky was about the same last evening.  I forget how late into the evening there is daylight at these latitudes - it was 10pm and the sun was just setting.

Wordless Wednesday - Landscape 06-13-12

 

A Day at Glacier Nat'l Park 06-12-12

Yesterday Joan Hodgeboom treated Ruth McDowell, Ruth Powers and myself to a wonderful driving tour of Glacier Nat'l Park, but the "Going-to-the-Sun" road is still not open due to snow, so we stopped at West Glacier and then drove around the park just outside the boundary - across the south end and up the east side to visit Many Glaciers, St. Mary's, Isak Walton, and other points of interest. 

 
Our first stop was for breakfast Glacier Highland restaurant at West Glacier where they served the best pancakes I have eaten in a very long time.   This guy is their greeter at the door.

 
Unfortunately someone removed his left eye, so he must wear a patch.

 
We stopped at Goat Lick overlook, a place where mountain goats go to lick the cliff face for the minerals that are found there.  No goats in this image, but on the way back Joan and Ruth P. went down the path and could see goats on the very sheer rock.  By this time my ankle was bothering me too much to do any hiking.

 
This is one of the red buses - see the canvas top that can be rolled back to provide sweeping views.

 
This is the lobby of Glacier Park Lodge built in 1913 by the Great Northern Railroad hotel at East Glacier.  The columns are Douglas Fir trees shipped from Oregon (I think), on railroad cars with specially built cradles to prevent damage to the bark.  They are massive and amazing.  Ruth McDowell stand on the left.

 
What an awesome table, you can see it in the previous picture also.

So many astounding views and we enjoyed gorgeous weather all day.

 
It was sad to see the results of a number of forest fires in past years.  In the Nat'l Park the practice is to leave the trees just as they are, unfortunately the standing and fallen timber dries and creates a huge fire hazard.  In the Blackfeet Nation adjacent to the Park, the Native American's removed much of the usable timber soon after the fires.  

 
More awesome views.

 
And rocks that seem to be cut by man, but are not.

 
This is one of the most photographed spots in the Park.  The little island is Two Geese Island.

 
We stopped at a viewpoint to admire this roaring waterfall.  There is a ramp down under the road and up the other side, but my ankle wasn't up to it, so I stayed up by the road.

 
And was thrilled to see this Dipper, a bird that bobs up and down on the rocks and then throws himself into the rushing water to walk on the streambed searching for tidbits to eat.  I know it is a terrible image, but I was so thrilled to see this little bird that I had to post it.

 
Here Ruth Powers, Joan Hodgeboom and Ruth McDowell walk down the ramp to get a better view of the waterfall and the stream.

 
This is Jackson Glacier - slowly melting away like all glaciers today.

 
Another tourist offered to take a picture of all of us together. 
Del Thomas, Ruth Powers, Ruth McDowell, Joan Hodgeboom.

We saw all sorts of wildlife, but mostly out of range of my camera.  This black bear was quite close to the road, but was too busy eating to pay any attention to us.   

 

Here he is with his head turned so at least his ear shows.
We also saw a grizzly bear in a meadow down along the river - quite a distance from the road and the gawking tourists.   There were dozens of mountain sheep and mountain goats above us on the high slopes, but again too far away for my point and shoot camera.

From the road we spotted this mother loon in a beaver pond with two chicks on her back.  The chicks swim around for a short time and then climb on Mom for a ride.

 
This is a sure indicator that beavers are working nearby.  The trees they cut have the tell-tale point.

 
Here is the beaver dam right on the edge of the road where the stream goes under.

These beavers have created a very large pond.

Another Loon, perhaps the Papa, swam quite close to the shore and gave his wonderful call a number of times, including the eerie yodel.